it's hard to be exclusive of groups when there are no people from other groups trying to be included

inode0 raised the point about voting pool matching candidate pool

sharkcz

bpepple: I don't know, but the upper body should decide that in general

jwb_

so from that point of view, it makes a little sense

notting

maybe just allow requesters to escalate to the board if they feel slighted?

bpepple

notting: that seems reasonable.

jds2001

and packager is by no means a high bar.

notting

jwb_: i can see that point (and some real-life counterexamples). of course, you could go either way in fixing that

jwb_

yeah

jds2001

well, the president must be 35 and a nautral born citizen.

the electorate is not so restricted.

j-rod

nb: its Fedora ENGINEERING steering committee here, right?

bpepple

j-rod: exactly.

jds2001

j-rod: yep.

j-rod

so I don't feel so bad about a minimal engineering qualification of packager

ok, so a website person could have some engineering chops

but still

jds2001

sure, but they're likely to be a packager too.

ianweller for example is.

j-rod

mountains and molehills and whatnot

ianweller

hmm what

ixs

jds2001: FWIW: limiting the electorate might be on topic next

* jwb_ points out we're still talking about a theoretical problem

j-rod

indeed

jds2001

ianweller you're a packager and a websites dude :)

j-rod

come back when its actually an issue for someone

notting

jds2001: similarly, both mizmo and mso from the art team are in packager, for example. or even our fearless leader stickster

j-rod

keep the restriction. next.

jds2001

i think that's how we voted earlier.

next is the great flags debate. I'd like to propose that we use the mini-agenda that abadger1999 provided.

dwmw2

before we start

dwmw2

do we want to postpone this to the next FESCo?

* abadger1999 looks in

notting

dwmw2: next elected fesco, yo umean?

dwmw2

right

jds2001

that's a good question too.

notting

also, jwb suggested a board escalation :/

ixs

dwmw2: I'm happy with postponing that.

nirik

I personally would like to repeal the current thing, and gather more data.

abadger1999

dwmw2: I'd say you could postpone defining a policy until the next FESCo but you should make a decision about whether to suspend the current policy until then.

ixs

dwmw2: I'd like the policy postponed as well in that case

dwmw2

when's the election?

jwb_

nirik, i like that

dwmw2

is there plenty of time to bring in the policy for F-12 if it is approved after the election?

jds2001

june 7-22

ixs

dwmw2: on the other hand: current fesco saw fit to approving it, so revisiting the issue is manning up to the problem. Postponing is somewhat weak.

dwmw2

it does make sense to suspend the policy if we do that, yes

ixs: p'raps. OTOH it gives people a chance to vote for pro-flags candidates :)

we can have a single-issue election

nirik

I regret we passed it as it has a number of issues. I think we need more data to determine how or if it can be fixed or scapped.

bpepple

ixs: yeah, it feels like passing the buck on a thorny issue to me also.

jwb_

two thoughts from me

jds2001

ixs: it allows other folks who may have differing viewpoints to be on fesco at the time.

* notting thinks that if we don't feel appropriate making a decision, escalation to the board is much more appropriate than just dropping it on the next fesco

nirik

dwmw2: currently the only candidate is notting. ;)

dwmw2

notting: true

dwmw2

nirik: I'll get round to finding the page and adding my name to it some time

jwb_

1) this is more a political issue than anything. those belong with the board. 2) suspending the current policy in light of 1 seems prudent

dwmw2

maybe even before the election :)

abadger1999

heh, we'll get more candidates if you punt this decision :-)

bpepple

notting: I'm a little leery of passing the buck on this. I mean if we can't get a solution to the hard problems, what good is FESCo?

dwmw2

I don't much like the policy as-is. If we have FESCo-approved exceptions which render Fedora unshippable in certain places anyway, the whole thing was a pointless waste of time

dwmw2

apart from the flames on f-d-l of course, which are always fun.

ixs

if it is a political issue and we want to pass it on to the board, the same goes: I'd like the policy turned over first. Because in that case, fesco was never the right body to have instated the policy in the first place

abadger1999

jwb_: Note, if this gets punted to the board, I'd definitely like separation between the question of "Goals of Fedora, what goes into Fedora" and "How to implement the goals of Fedora"

notting

bpepple: i sort of agree, i just think that that would be better than meekly punted to the next fesco

jwb_

abadger1999, i'm sure the board would agree

bpepple

notting: no, I agree passing to the next fesco would be one of the weakest decisions we've made.

ixs

notting: I think it's a rather gutless decision to push everything which could be a bit harder to the board.

nirik

I don't have a problem with fesco deciding this policy, but I think the current thing is not suitable, and we need more data to determine if we can make a suiteable policy or even if we need too.

notting

ixs: it's a level of gutlessness. punt to next fesco is worse than punt to board is worse than solve it now :)

abadger1999

Another note, the board may need to decide this, but there's a good deal of technical implementation to discuss as well.

jwb_

ixs, if we did it all the time, yes. this issue really does warrant board attention though

ixs, just like the iran situation

ixs

notting: agreed. :)

abadger1999

For instance, it is possible to ship flags in the repository but exlucde them from spins. That's a technical decision.

nirik

abadger1999: sure, they could punt back to fesco with a high level goal, and it would be up to us to figure out an implementation I guess.

abadger1999

Whereas, do we want to have something we can ship to China is political

<nod>

ixs

jwb_: I'd tend to agree. Problem however: Fesco already did accept that issue in the past. Punting it to the board now is just awkward.

jwb_

ixs, we learn from mistakes

ixs

jwb_: and it could shine a bad light on fesco.

jwb_

i could give two shits about feeling awkward when the right thing to do is fix it

* nirik didn't think this was that big an issue, but the currrent policy surely has lots of faults.

jwb_

and part of fixing it is to get the high level decision from the board

ixs

jwb_: that's one way to see it. Considering that there have been "worst fesco ever" messages on the list, I don't know if the electorate agrees. :D

jwb_

i'm part of the electorate.

dwmw2

it's not purely a political issue and not purely technical

notting

ixs: maybe people just like quoting comic book guy

dwmw2

we need to balance the political downside of shipping flags, with the technical downside of removing them

jwb_

ok, this is simple

1) we have no legal reason to remove

bpepple

did we ever get an accurate count of how many packages are affected?

ixs

notting: I have no clue who comic book guy is and I don't even know how to compare this fesco to last year's fesco or so. To me, they all look the same. They could suck, they could be full of win, I wouldn't know.

* nirik doesn't think we have enough data to craft a new policy or fix the current one. We need to gather more in order to tell.

jwb_

2) people seem to be concerned about distributing to china, which has political impacts

jds2001

and the board would need the same data.

ixs

bpepple: handwaving packages is between 5 and 15 which we know of.

* dwmw2 submits a package with some nazi flags in.

* bpepple notes that he is affected by this since he maintains freeciv (possibly the worst offender).

f13

bpepple: kevin koffler seems to know about 5 more than the 5 we already know about, he's just not telling

nirik

jwb_: 1) ...yet. 2) we don't really know what china requires, do we?

jwb_

3) the board is supposed to be our higher level group that deals with the overall direction fedora is going

ixs

dwmw2: I'll sponsor...

jwb_

nirik, i'm pretty sure we do

f13

The evidence we do have is that when RHL took the flags out, that was good enough for China then

notting

nirik: i think that drawing on the example of RHL/RHEL is a reasonable approximation

nirik

jwb_: cite needed? Has anyone looked and confirmed that china has a block on flags? what is it? what does it say? what flags?

jwb_

f13, that same evidence is inconclusive given freeciv

ixs

nirik: 2) we never know what china might come up with. What we're doing here is armchair-lawyering. I don't think this should guide fedorra policy. :D

nirik

notting: when was the last time someone checked? 10 years ago?

j-rod

see: taiwanese delegation, summer olympics '08

nirik

j-rod: they were importing a linux distribution? :)

f13

jwb_: yeah, they could have just not noticed freeciv

too busy actually learning with their computers.

jwb_

f13, right

ixs

jwb_: people seem to be concerned about distributingto china. emphasis on the seem... :/

* f13 ducks

j-rod

no, but they couldn't carry their own flag on Chinese soil

notting

nirik: RH legal, in their message to spot, said that including flags can/will cause issues with distribution within china and other areas. they did not call out other concerns

nirik: they also said that was not a *legal* issue, just a consideration

ixs

notting: source for that?

j-rod

can't we just have a Chinese spin? :)

abadger1999

ixs: That's in spot's message to the list I think.

f13

ixs: I am concerned with being able to distribute to China. There are existing contributors there (lots of translators) and many potential.

ixs

notting: I have read spots stuff and didn't see anything from legal stating definite problems.

notting

ixs: one of spot's messages in the thread. i can dig up a message-id if you need it

nirik

yeah, I specifically want to know what china (or whoeever) prohibits. they likely have laws written down and everything. ;)

j-rod

'this spin is certified to not have any flags in it, so its safe for use in China'

jds2001

j-rod: then we would show favortisim to china

ixs

notting: would be great, because I seem to have missed it then during my writeup. But it's more general interest, look it up later tonight.

ewan

It's also not clear that even if flags are a problem, that they're the only problem.

abadger1999

jds2001: But at least it's honest :-/

dwmw2

out of interest, do we ship any world maps with the borders between Pakistan and India shown on them...?

ixs

jds2001: nah, having a chinese spin is not showing favorites. everyxbody is free to make a local spin. fedora-de spin, full of nazi flags... fedora chinese with less taiwan in there...

notting

ixs: Message-ID: <4A119823.4090509@redhat.com>

nirik

proposal: 1) drop current policy 2) try and find some suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeople who are willing to look further into the issue and gather data and report back to us about it. 3) see if we can craft a policy based on that data or decide we don't want one

sharkcz

similar situation is Serbia vs Kosovo ...

ixs

jds2001: as long as they keep to the spin guidelines, that's perfectly okay.

jds2001

ixs: sure.

dwmw2

nirik: +1 I was just about to propose something almost identical

jwb_

nirik, i'm honestly OK with just doing #1

dwmw2

suspend the current policy -- it wasn't in force yet _anyway_ because we were never going to make F-11 comply

ixs

nirik: that would be proposal 2 in the ticket, isn't it?

nirik

jwb_: yeah, it may be that we can't craft a policy that helps, so then no policy might be better.

j-rod

I'm for suspend and revisit vs. drop

nirik

ixs: not sure. let me look.

notting

dwmw2: well, we already have packages that have them removed. are we going to tell people they must put them back?

dwmw2

do we have any Chinese locals who can help us understand the practicalities?

jds2001

j-rod: me too.

notting: no, why would we

?

j-rod

also, are flag-bearing packages on the DVD iso and/or the live images?

or only in the repo?

nirik

ixs: well, not exactly... you mention a SIG, but this doesn't need to be a sig, just a few people gathering info.

notting

jds2001: just making the speculation that any statement we make could lead to aqiuck CVS war between than and kkofler :)

j-rod: if they're put back to where they've been removed, yes

f13

j-rod: they could potentially be on any spin

j-rod: most certainly in the games spin

nirik

notting: were those changes made after this policy? ?

notting

freeciv's on the games spin. kde (which has them currently removed, unless i missed it) is obvs on the DVD & KDE spins

ixs

nirik: ahkay.

j-rod

so as long as we have at least one spin and the installer flag-free, I don't really see a problem

notting

nirik: kde's had them excised since the RHL days, unless it's been changed to put them back

abadger1999

nirik: They preexist.

j-rod

China can police themselves

ixs

notting: kde has them not removed AFAIK

* nirik points out thats another thing we don't know: all the packages that are containing flags.

j-rod

'these Fedora versions are okay for use in China, these ones are not'

'don't install these packages'

NOT OUR PROBLEM

:)

ixs

notting: I think the only package which removed them was the deluge thingy where rozzbeh opened the bug.

notting

ixs: kdebase3 certainly still does. i haven't checked the kde4 packages as i didn't track where they moved to there

abadger1999

ixs: There are some specific packages where they are not removed but for the most part they are in a separate package.

ixs

jds2001: but it seems there are people who want to make that our problem.

nirik

j-rod: it's useless to speculate I think... do they really care? what does their law say? what do other distros do? we just don't know.

I personally would like to see fedora easily accessable in places like that, but we need to find out what they require to see if it's worth the trade off to fedora.

f13

dwmw2: anything less is just asking for trouble

ixs

dwmw2: slippery slope

notting

ixs: nirik asked what other distros do. i answered

dwmw2

ixs: why so?

ixs

dwmw2: what will we be doing next? russia and france are problematic regarding crypto.

dwmw2: we currently have contributors in france?

notting

ixs: and yes, kde-l10n removes them as well

dwmw2

we're already _on_ the slope. We already removed the swearing and the nekkid wenches.

f13

ixs: we do what the governing bodies of Fedora find acceptable.

abadger1999

dwmw2: porting (notting's volunteered to do that), having to build the packages in two separate repos, having to point people at the other repo to get the packages,

jwb_

is there a reason we're doing a real-time rehashing of a 300 email list thread here?

ixs

dwmw2: high time to stop. it's only getting worse.

* nirik sees the train driving off into the weeds

ixs

nirik: agreed.

dwmw2

removing crypto is much more of a technical problem than removing flags.

ixs

okay: proposal:

1. drop the policy

2. pass the buck to board

notting

ixs: crypto is a core component. flags as a crap UI to pick languages... not so much.

ixs

they should decide if we want a policy, if we need it and who's going to take care of it.

abadger1999

I'd strongly encourage writing a specific question for #2.

nirik

lets back up.

* abadger1999 does not want another codina

dwmw2

I think punting it to the board is as weak as punting it to the next fesco

nirik

proposal (please only fesco people vote): drop current policy.

jwb_

+1

dwmw2

suspend the policy, collect more information and revisit in time to implement it (if we want to) for F-12.

ixs

dwmw2: but at least the mess is cleaned up.

nirik

+1 here. It has lots of flaws.

jds2001

+1

dwmw2

nirik: +1

notting

nirik: i can't vote on that without some other co-proposal (followup? new proposal? just ignore it?)

nirik

ok, was hoping to get something done. ;) how about:

notting

i.e., my vote on dropping the current policy is dependent on what we do next

nirik

proposal: 1) drop current policy 2) try and find some suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeople who are willing to look further into the issue and gather data and report back to us about it. 3) see if we can craft a policy based on that data or decide we don't want one

ixs

nirik: I'll volunteer as the sucker.

dwmw2

+1 to all of that.

jds2001

+1

nirik

I guess 3 could be extended with ask the board if we think that we are unable to draft a policy without higher level guidance.

delero

\

\\

nirik

but I would like to see data and come up with a specific question to the board if so.

jds2001

sure, of course.

notting

is part of #2 actually listing all packages that would be affected by any theoretical policy?

delero

(sorry for accidental noise)

nirik

notting: yes, it should be.

jds2001

notting: yeah

nirik

ixs: that would be great.

ixs

nirik: no problem.

j-rod

worksforme

ixs

notting: I think however that the number of packages should not influence any decisions about a policy. Either the policy is sound, or it's not. It doesn't matter how many packages or who is affected.

fedoraaditya

what is new?

jds2001

i only seee three votes for that now :/

dwmw2

ixs: I disagree with that.

nirik

1) packages with flags in fedora. 2) what other distros do (I think this is a useful datapoint) 3) what any specific laws are for affected countries (perhaps we could ask ambassadors about this)

ixs: it is important. We need to know how much burden it places on our maintainers.

dwmw2

ixs: if the policy means we have to touch _every_ package, it's probably not a sound policy :)

as I said before, it's a trade-off

between a political issue and a technical one.

notting

ixs: a policy could be "don't include things that could be controversial where they don't affect the functionality or improve the user interface". that policy would need to know how many things it would touch to be seful

abadger1999

dwmw2: It's also a tradeoff between two political issues.

ixs

dwmw2: lemme quote f13 on trade offs: Am I the only one that thinks that maintainers who don't have enough time to do things properly in Fedora, shoul

dn't be doing things in Fedora?

dwmw2: so either it's the right thing or not, how much work it needs shouldn't matter. :>

dwmw2

yeah, and I want a pony

ixs

nirik: but fine. I'll try to see how many packages are affected.

dwmw2

if that were true we'd have _all_ architectures as primary :)

nirik

ixs: it's data fesco should use to determine the scope of the problem, if we need to try and assist maintainers, or if there are so few packages that just dropping them could be an option.

ixs

dwmw2: go talk to f13, he's rel-eng.

notting

dwmw2: fedora-cris?

nirik

any more votes for that proposal? or does anyone have a counter?

abadger1999

nirik: Actually.. just dropping them is a big can of worms because it's not technical.

* nirik is +1 for his own proposal.

bpepple

+1 to dropping current policy, and gathering data.

abadger1999

porting would be a technical solution.

nirik

abadger1999: you feel it would be political then and for the board? possibly.

j-rod

+1 for nirik's prop

jds2001

+1

j-rod

and +1 for banning anyone who continues that thread any further until info gathering is done.

nirik

ixs: can you ask for other interested people to assist you in gathering info? I might be able to help too time permitting.

abadger1999

It's saying "rather than having all the free software that is well maintained and someone wants to package" it's "we want to have all of the free software that can be shipped to China"

jwb_

+1

ixs

nirik: would be great.

notting

given that dropping is essentially returning to the prior state where there's a de facto but not de jure policy, i'm not sure it helps us much

jwb_

i have 4 min

abadger1999

ixs: You'll definitely need spot's input as he can make use of RH legal.

* jds2001 too.

notting

abadger1999: china's the current example. i suspect if there was software that prosteletzed on the great satan russia (or some craziness) in the default install, we'd be back here too

jds2001

the "having 4 min part", that is.

nirik

notting: the de facto policy was never written down tho.

notting

nirik: sure.

abadger1999

notting: Depends on what the board says. It could be "We want to be able to ship the entire repository anywhere in the world" or it could be "Some working subset of Fedora must be shipable to any part of the world"

dwmw2

notting: I have a cris board around here somewhere...

notting

nirik: that's sort of implied from 'de facto' :)

abadger1999

Or something else. there's a lot of different ways this could go forward.

ixs

abadger1999: *nod*

* jds2001 disappears, sorry :/

f13

abadger1999: or the board could say that it doesn't want to add to the busy work RHEL maintainers will have to do to the packages when they come from Fedora, so follow the RHEL policy of "no flags".

ixs

notting: the de-factor policy is not written down. you'd be hard pressed to enforce anything with an uncooperative packager.

notting: one could even argue, that the RH de-facto policy, is therefore not a fedora policy. I'm sure kanarip is happy to talk about that.

nirik

so did we pass that? or is someone else coming up with a proposal?

notting

abadger1999: right, i'm saying that it probably should be looked at slightly larger than 'china' issue

notting

nirik: my counter proposal would be 'no flags without fesco approval'. i doubt that would pass, but we can take a vote if you like

abadger1999

notting: Yes and no. The arguements for a ban like 1/6 of the world's population depend on China being a real issue.

ixs

nirik: counting the number of votes, you can close the issue

jwb_

i have to leave. if we don't suspend or drop the current policy, i'm going to be disappointed

jwb_

and then 30 seconds later i'll get over it and move on with my life

dwmw2

how many votes did we get for 'suspend the policy and collect data to review' ?

ixs

nirik: there should be enough for dropping the policy and gather more data

* jwb_ &

bpepple

jwb_: ;)

nirik

notting: what would cause fesco to approve a package with flags?

ixs

5 votes as far as I can see

ewan

f13: RHEL only includes a fraction of Fedora though, the whole thing doesn't have to be RHEL safe.

notting

nirik: provided there's actual work on coming to a conclusion as opposed to just punting, i suppose i can be +1

nirik

yeah, I think it passed.

ixs

that would be +6 then

nirik

I think we (or well the next fesco) should revisit it after we have more data.

nirik

I don't think this is being wishy washy. I just don't think we have enough info to craft a more clear policy.

notting

nirik: well, that's a different debate. something like 'functionally required, or used in a reasonable historical context'. or, heck, fesco's discretion.

nirik

ok, who's taking over for jds2001. :)

notting: but then it doesn't solve the issue right? if china say prohibits something that might prevent fedora from being distributed there.

notting

i was, i believe. this is the last item on the agenda, given that jwb, dwmw2, and jds2001 had to go, i think we probably just want to close for the week

nirik

if we do that then why not have them all since we have lost?

notting

nirik: because it's still a crap UI :P

* nirik notes again he doesn't know what if any rule china has

nirik

agreed. Perhaps FPC could add a "SHOULD: should not use flags for ui, as this is a bad idea"

ixs

notting: UI is an upstream problem.

ewan

The 'crap UI' argument's great for language selectors, not so much fro FreeCiv

ixs

notting: face it, if bad UI would be a reason for policy, the gnome spoin and the kde spin would be dead.

j-rod

haha

notting

ixs: that's passing the buck just as much as than fesco, though. "sorry we're giving you bad software. blame upstream". :)

bpepple

ewan: freeciv can be removed from Fedora. (btw, I say this as it's maintainer)

nirik

ewan: yeah, but if the law in .cn is no tw flag and freeciv has one, allowing it means they could disallow all of fedora right?

notting

ewan: and it could likely come under an exception, i expect.

ewan

bpepple: It could, but not on the grounds that flags are poor UI design. It would have to be pure politics.

ixs

notting: UPSTREAM! has always been the fedora battle cry.

notting

nirik: probably depends on what defines 'fedora'.

ixs

notting: claiming that it's always upstream except when we don't like it or know it better is not part of the policy.

notting

ixs: i know. and it's because it encourages working in a community, and aids with maintenance. it still shouldn't be a crutch for shipping bad software.

j-rod

we totally need an 'unoffensive to every soul on the planet' spin. As well as the polar opposite, an 'offensive even to axe murders' spin

nirik

notting: yeah, I am ok with ending the meeting if we have no more. Perhaps an open floor.

notting

ixs: but, realistically, we don't have the resources to fix all the bad software out there

ewan

nirik: Quite possibly. But simply removing the flag, or freeciv as a whole may not be enough. We just don't know that it actually solves the problem.

bpepple

nirik: though how about an open floor not about flags. ;)

nirik

bpepple: yes. agreed.

j-rod

bpepple: +1

notting

bpepple: all for that

nirik

ewan: right. no data.

j-rod

dear flags: die in a fire

oh wait

ixs

notting: working with upstream to fix any language choosers with flags is okay and consistant with the fedora goals. Forking because upstream is not willing to change their flag usage is not.

j-rod

that would offend someone

ixs

j-rod: I want the axe murderer spin! that would rock!

j-rod

:)

notting

any open questions for FESCo not about flags?

ixs

yeah

what are we doing about crypto in france?

* ixs runs

ewan

As a pro-flags person (actually, mostly pro-freeciv) I'm perfectly happy with the suspend the policy and gather data outcome.

bpepple

ixs: do you think you can round up that data by next week? or do you need some folks to help you out?

ewan

Though, why /can't/ we have nekkid people wallpapers - it worked OK for Ubuntu?

* ewan also runs

j-rod

for fesco?

ewan

j-rod: Probably not, but the thought's crossed my mind. Not sure I can make the time to do it justice though.

nirik

oh, one note: I will likely not be at the meeting next week.

ixs

bpepple: I can come up with _some_ data. I don't think next week is reasonable if you expect a scientific paper with proofs. :D

bpepple

I'd just like to know how many packages are actually affected by this.

notting

given where we stand with f11 and f12, i don't know that we need to rush it to fit in a week

j-rod

ewan: yeah, its been a struggle for me to carve out the time, wish I had more to give to it :\

bpepple

notting: agreed.

bpepple

alright, so is there anything else, or should we put a fork in this meeting?